At 09:08 AM 6/28/99 -0500, Dr. Nuncheon wrote:
>> Second TRUE story.
>> Apparently there is a women that can detach her eyeball and still
>> see through it even though it is miles away.
>
>Say what?
>
>Do you have a source for this?

Yeah ... It's SUN magazine ... On sale at your local
grocer's impulse shopping rack ... right next to
Weekly World News.

At 07:53 PM 6/27/1999 -0400, Juan Antonio Ramirez wrote:
>
>Here's what I want to do... I want to make this item (say a ring, a
>power bracelet, whatever) which has a set of powers which anybody who
>picks it up and wears it can use. By the way, Superhero setting...
>Well, the problem is the SFX. They are sorta variable... it depends on
>who picks it up. It basically reflects the personality, or desires, or
>likes, or something like that, of the user. Like say the powers are
>Flight, EB, and Force Wall. If a pyromaniac uses it, the Flight would
>be Torch-like (with a firey trail), EB would be like a blast of fire,
>and the force wall would be a wall of fire. If an occultist picked it
>up, maybe flight would be him sprouting demonlike bat wings, EB would be
>spirits shooting from his hands and attacking, and Force Wall might be
>pillars of unearthly black stone rising from the ground.
>Anyway, you get the idea... the SFX ARE variable, but not for one
>user...
>I'm tempted to list it as a +/- 0 Adv/Lim ("SFX Reflects user's
>'heart'"), but I'm thinking maybe it's Variable SFX with a Limitation on
>the Advantage...
>What to you guys think?

<snip>
> Okay, buy two versions. Put them in a Multipower. Cost for two
versions
>of a 12d6 EB should be 120 points before any Limitations are applied [see
>below]. Buying a 12d6 EB with Armor Piercing would normally have cost you
>90 points (or 105 points if you tacked on "Variable Effect, +1/4").
> Functionally, these two options are the same, except that the
"legal"
>version is 15-30 points more expensive. New options should be created when
>existing ones will not do the job, not when the existing ones seem too
>expensive. That way lies the disruption of game balance, as some options
>become cheaper than they should be.
>
>Multipower, 90 pt reserve
>18 12d6 EB w/Armor Piercing
>12 12d6 EB

I'd agree, except that some of your assumptions are unacceptable. I never
trust any suggestion to solve a weakness in a Power's flexibility via
Multipower.

What if the character is already using an EC to purchase their Powers?
Whether they buy both Powers in the EC, or convince the GM to let them have
a Multipower for them, it is too expensive.

Additionally, your post assumes a campaign where Multipowers are allowed.
What if Power Frameworks are forbidden, as is recommended for most
non-supers campaigns? Then they get to spend 150 pts on this Power.

The proper way to model this Power, for general use, is buy buying two
Powers outright, at full cost. This would cost, in this case, the same as a
+1 Advantage.

Now, _if_ this is a reasonable cost, compared to other Powers not in Power
Frameworks, then this is what it should cost. However, I don't believe it
is. An Advantage of some sort is in order.

It is said that the ghul can be killed with one blow, but a second blow
will bring it back to life. I presume that the ghul doesn't have that
much BODY then (5? 8?), so killing it in one blow can't be that hard.
But, how do you define the idea that the second blow brings it back to
life? A bunch of Healing Aid with a Trigger? (I presume the Trigger is
"Being hit after reaching 0 BODY").

> From: Michael Surbrook <susano@dedaana.otd.com>
>
> Okay, he is one I've been puzzling over:
>
> It is said that the ghul can be killed with one blow, but a second blow
> will bring it back to life. I presume that the ghul doesn't have that
> much BODY then (5? 8?), so killing it in one blow can't be that hard.
> But, how do you define the idea that the second blow brings it back to
> life? A bunch of Healing Aid with a Trigger? (I presume the Trigger is
> "Being hit after reaching 0 BODY").
>
> Any other suggestions?
>

Make it a disadvantage, rather than trying to buy it as a power.
Physical Limitation: Frequent, Greatly 'dies' after being hit with first blow

> > Okay, he is one I've been puzzling over:
> >
> > It is said that the ghul can be killed with one blow, but a second blow
> > will bring it back to life. I presume that the ghul doesn't have that
> > much BODY then (5? 8?), so killing it in one blow can't be that hard.
> > But, how do you define the idea that the second blow brings it back to
> > life? A bunch of Healing Aid with a Trigger? (I presume the Trigger is
> > "Being hit after reaching 0 BODY").
> >
> > Any other suggestions?
>
> Make it a disadvantage, rather than trying to buy it as a power.
> Physical Limitation: Frequent, Greatly 'dies' after being hit with first blow

Okay, but as I read it, the ghul is dead and will stay ded. The second
blow will bring it back to life. That sort of sounds like Stalker's Phys
Lim there.

- ----------
> Okay, he is one I've been puzzling over:
>
> It is said that the ghul can be killed with one blow, but a second blow
> will bring it back to life. I presume that the ghul doesn't have that
> much BODY then (5? 8?), so killing it in one blow can't be that hard.
> But, how do you define the idea that the second blow brings it back to
> life? A bunch of Healing Aid with a Trigger? (I presume the Trigger =
is
> "Being hit after reaching 0 BODY").
>
> Any other suggestions?
>
How about Absorbtion with the limitation (Only works on every other hit)=
with the points channeled into a Regneration?)

> It is said that the ghul can be killed with one blow, but a second blow
> will bring it back to life. I presume that the ghul doesn't have that
> much BODY then (5? 8?), so killing it in one blow can't be that hard.
> But, how do you define the idea that the second blow brings it back to
> life? A bunch of Healing Aid with a Trigger? (I presume the Trigger is
> "Being hit after reaching 0 BODY").

It could be simpler than that: buy it with a normal Body score and enough
defense that it will never be killed by a reasonable attack in the game,
which would be pretty easy if heroic fantasy, probably about 10-15 rPD.
Possibly give it minimal Regeneration for those unreasonable rolls that come
up. Then give it a Physical Limitation: "Is 'killed' if hit once, but comes
back if hit again", probably worth about 25 points (you're unlikely to meet
one under friendly circumstances, so the disad would come up every time one
is in the game).

>It is said that the ghul can be killed with one blow, but a second blow
>will bring it back to life. I presume that the ghul doesn't have that
>much BODY then (5? 8?), so killing it in one blow can't be that hard.
>But, how do you define the idea that the second blow brings it back to
>life? A bunch of Healing Aid with a Trigger? (I presume the Trigger is
>"Being hit after reaching 0 BODY").
>
>Any other suggestions?

I would set the trigger of that to be "being under full BOD" since it
wouldn't function if alive. But perhaps it just has lots of DEF and 1 BOD,
it seems to be unharmed unless you do a ton of damage to it all at once?
This is a totally unfamiliar creature to me, so I don't know the setting.

> >It is said that the ghul can be killed with one blow, but a second blow
> >will bring it back to life. I presume that the ghul doesn't have that
> >much BODY then (5? 8?), so killing it in one blow can't be that hard.
> >But, how do you define the idea that the second blow brings it back to
> >life? A bunch of Healing Aid with a Trigger? (I presume the Trigger is
> >"Being hit after reaching 0 BODY").
> >
> >Any other suggestions?
>
> I would set the trigger of that to be "being under full BOD" since it
> wouldn't function if alive. But perhaps it just has lots of DEF and 1 BOD,
> it seems to be unharmed unless you do a ton of damage to it all at once?
> This is a totally unfamiliar creature to me, so I don't know the setting.

The ghul I'm describing is the Arabic ghul. The original ghul/ghoul that
lived in the deserts and ate people.

It must be Summer, because I'm revisiting the way magic works in my home
campaign.

Last year I decided that I didn't want mages to have to pay END for spells.
Instead,
I created a system using an Endurance Battery with a recovery that only
recovered
once a day (upon meditation). The advantage, from my point of view, was
that it
forced mage characters to husband their spells, using them more
judiciously, which
fit the tone of the campaign I am trying to run.

This worked fine for one-shot spells (like a lightning bolt) that were
instantaneous. But
it used up the END BATT damn quick with ongoing spells (like Flight).

So I toyed with various solutions.

One was that magi only paid END from the battery on casting the spell, and
that the
duration of the spell was limited by definition. Modelling this using 0
Endurance
got very expensive. Modelling it using charges put the cost more in line
with the utility
of the power, but since I don't intend to limit how often a mage character
can cast
a particular spell, other than by the amount of Endurance in the Battery,
Charges
seems to be cheating (giving a limitation for allowing the power to be
ongoing).

A further complication is that my magic system uses VPPs. The characters can
only cast spells from the VPP that are written in their spellbooks (for
which they
pay 1 point each, regardless of the power of the spell). Charges within a VPP
seem doubly meaningless.

>VARIABLE EFFECT: This advantage allows powers to be used more flexibly than
>normally possible. Energy blast with this may be used as stun only or
>normal; an area effect attack with this may be used as a normal blast or as
>the area effect, and so forth. A very partial list of examples would be:
<snip>

Too flexible for the price on some Powers. Unfortunately, with other powers,
it is probably priced right, making it hard to price.

I'd recommend an expansion/rewrite of Variable Advantage, something like
this:

Variable Effect:
Powers with this Advantage have multiple forms. These can include
Advantages, or can be part of the Power description. These could be
different Advantages, an Advantaged form and a non-Advantaged form,
different forms of the base Power (such as a Force Wall with 10PD, 30ED and
30 PD, 10 ED), or even Limitations. The multiple effects must be selected at
Power creation.

If used to switch between Advantages, the character must pay for the largest
of all possible Advantages plus the price of Variable Usage. If used to
switch between Limitations, the character only gets the bonus for the lower
of the two.

For +1/4, _in addition to the cost of any Advantages_, the Power can switch
between two methods of usage.

For +1/2, the character can have up to 5 different forms to switch between.

For +1, the character can select between any Advantages or Limitations
within the Advantages/Limitations paid for. If the Power has multiple Power
levels that give and take (such as Force Field or Force Wall), these can
also be bought this way.

Example:
Blasto wants an Explosion for dealing with groups of enemies, but also wants
to be able to pinpoint certain targets, so as to not take out himself or his
teammates.

The "Requires half Move" element in UMA does not say if you HAVE to make a FULL
half-move, or if you can simply run a portion of your half-move to meet the
requirements of the Martial maneuver element.

- --Rodger

Bob Greenwade wrote:

> At 09:39 AM 6/25/1999 -0700, Rodger Bright wrote:
> >Once again i am at work, have an idea, but don't have a rule book in front of
> >me.
> >
> >I am working on a martial maneuver for an Archetype that is a "Passing
> Strike"
> >
> >It should do extra damage for velocity.... Who remembers the cost of adding
> >Velocity to a martial maneuver? And is it v/2 or v/5?
>
> Passing Strike, in TUMA, is 5 pts, +1 OCV, +0 DCV, STR+v/5, Full Move.
>
> >(I should really keep an Ultimate Martial Artist with me at all times!)
>
> Yeah, I do (at least, when I'm going to do email)! :-]
> ---
> Bob's Original Hero Stuff Page! [Circle of HEROS member]
> http://www.klock.com/public/users/bob.greenwade/original.htm
> Merry-Go-Round Webring -- wanna join?
> http://www.klock.com/public/users/bob.greenwade/merrhome.htm
> Interested in sarrusophones? Join the Sarrusophone Mailing List!
> http://www.klock.com/public/users/bob.greenwade/sarrus.htm

<snip>
>
>Second TRUE story.
> Apparently there is a women that can detach her eyeball and still
>see through it even though it is miles away. The police discovered this
>when she called them to tell them her eye was stolen and that she could
>see the criminals. She had taken it out and put it into a cleaning
>solution and left it in a suitcase in her hotel room while she went
>swimming. (Swimming makes it pop out). The criminals stole her suitcase
>and she found them when they put the glass containing her eye on a
>window sill where she could see a grocery store across the street. She
>called the grocery store to find out it's address...and then the police.

Who says it is true? Unless they have an impeccable reputation, I doubt it.
However, if it _is_ true, I know some neurologists, physicists, a magician
or two, some psychologists, etc., who would love to have a talk with her.

Designers Notes:
Gil Hamilton is Larry Niven's fictional detective created as part of
Niven's "Known Space" setting. He lives in the 22nd Century, working as
an agent of ARM (Amalgamated Regional Militia), the police force of the
United Nations. His main job is pursuing organleggers, criminals who
kidnap and breakup innocent people for black market body parts.

Gil got his start as a Kansas farmboy, although his parents farm was a
mere 10 square miles (and was still the second largest farm in the state).
He ended up as a Belter, cruising the asteroid belt looking for mineral
rich chunks of rock. He lost is arm during on e of these trips. A small
fragment of rock blew through the hull of the ship, blowing Gil's arm off
at the shoulder. After he recovered and what was left of his arm healed,
Gil discovered that he still had his arm. Or, more accurately, he has a
telekinetic impression of his arm.

Eventually, Gil returned to Earth, mainly so he could get a replacement
arm free of cost. He also joined the ARM, and turned his attentions to
pursuing criminals such as organleggers and women who have children
without a license. There are 18 billion people living on the Earth in
Gil's time, someone has to keep the peace...

Description:
Since all of Gil's stories are in the first person, Niven never gives as a
description of what Gil looks like, and Gil never comments on what he
looks like.

Powers Notes:
Gil is a psi with a fairly limited, but useful power. He has a
telekinetic third 'arm' that acts just like a real arm. The only real
problem is that his arm can only support about 5 ounces or so. On Earth,
he can lift a full shot glass of a lit cigarette, on the moon he can
handle a mug of beer. On the other hand, his third arm is not stopped by
physical barriers, and Gil can (and has) reached through the hull of his
spaceship to feel around outside. He can also feel inside objects, and
has traced wiring, cracks, scars and welds to objects in walls and other
machines. Interestingly enough, Gil can also use his power through a
video screen, reaching 'into' the image to pick up an object he sees (such
as a pencil). This requires a *very* clear video image, however. Gil has
also used this aspect of his power to 'feel around' in a real-time
holographic projection, reaching *into* the image to feel the actual
ground the image depicts. Depending on the scale of the projection, Gil's
'hand' can cover a great deal (but then, his sense of touch will also be
affected). Finally, Gil's ability to reach inside of objects has allowed
him to crush a man's heart inside his body. he reached into the target's
chest, grabbed the heart and squeezed. There are several ways to do this,
and I felt the NND RKA worked best. The Defense vs this NND will depend
greatly on the setting. In Gil's world, there really is no common
defense. One presumes that another psi might be able to fight off the
effects, but other than that, there are no force screens or other devices
to block Gil's esper arm. Naturally, in a more fantastical SF setting, or
a superheroic setting, defenses vs Gil's esper arm will be far easier to
come by.

Note that there is no visual effect of Gil's power (like a ghostly arm for
example), an object Gil touches looks to move on is own.

Disadvantages Notes:
Gil is an amazingly stable individual. He doesn't get angry, sad,
depressed or otherwise out of sorts easily and tends to remain somewhat
relaxed. He does not like organleggers at all, how ever and will do his
utmost to bring one to justice. he also can't leave a good mystery alone
and will poke around one, until he is satisfied he has an answer.

(Gil Hamilton created by Larry Niven, character sheet created by Michael
Surbrook)

If Flight is a 50 active point power it should take the same amount of
"magical
energy" to cast as a 50 active point fireball (in my opinion anyway).

In my fantast Game I have a similar system where I make each mage
character buy an
END reserve with a REC that onlly recovers when resting and per hour.

I have a skill called Channeling Potential which represents the amount
of active
points a PC can have in their powers.

The END Reserve for full mages (called Channelers in my game) is equal
to their
Channeling Potential x 15. And the REC for the END Reserve is
Channeling
Potential x 2.

I also allow them to add (for FREE!) their Regular END to this END
Reserve...
BUT... Their physcial END can NEVER be higher then the END left in the
reserve.

So if someone has a 100 point END Reserve and a 20 Physical END he can
burn up 100
points befoe he starts to get physically fatigued. He CAN choose to use
the last
20 END from his Reserve, but for each point he spends from the Reserve
his
physical END drops to match. So after spending 119 points from his END
Reserve he
is on the ground gasping for air, and will NOT get a REC in 12 seconds.
His
Reserve needs to get a REC before he can take a physical REC.

We have found this system to work really well. I really hits home to
people that
they need to lower their powers and get reduced end at all costs.

We also have different multiples depending upon the "type" of Channeler
you play.
A Full Channeler (i.e. a Mage) gets 15xChanneling Potential, a Monk gets
10x, and
a Paladin or Blademaster gets 5x.

Just thought I would give you an idea as to how I have done it, and what
my group
has come up with. Doesn't work for everyone, and might not work for
ANYONE else,
but it works pretty well for us. We normally only have 1, maybe 2
combats per
sessions (10 players, over 1/2 are new to the system makes combats a
little drawn
out).

> It must be Summer, because I'm revisiting the way magic works in my home
> campaign.
>
> Last year I decided that I didn't want mages to have to pay END for spells.
> Instead,
> I created a system using an Endurance Battery with a recovery that only
> recovered
> once a day (upon meditation). The advantage, from my point of view, was
> that it
> forced mage characters to husband their spells, using them more
> judiciously, which
> fit the tone of the campaign I am trying to run.
>
> This worked fine for one-shot spells (like a lightning bolt) that were
> instantaneous. But
> it used up the END BATT damn quick with ongoing spells (like Flight).
>
> So I toyed with various solutions.
>
> One was that magi only paid END from the battery on casting the spell, and
> that the
> duration of the spell was limited by definition. Modelling this using 0
> Endurance
> got very expensive. Modelling it using charges put the cost more in line
> with the utility
> of the power, but since I don't intend to limit how often a mage character
> can cast
> a particular spell, other than by the amount of Endurance in the Battery,
> Charges
> seems to be cheating (giving a limitation for allowing the power to be
> ongoing).
>
> A further complication is that my magic system uses VPPs. The characters can
> only cast spells from the VPP that are written in their spellbooks (for
> which they
> pay 1 point each, regardless of the power of the spell). Charges within a VPP
> seem doubly meaningless.
>
> Anyone have any suggestions?

> Okay, he is one I've been puzzling over:
>
> It is said that the ghul can be killed with one blow, but a second blow
> will bring it back to life. I presume that the ghul doesn't have that
> much BODY then (5? 8?), so killing it in one blow can't be that hard.
> But, how do you define the idea that the second blow brings it back to
> life? A bunch of Healing Aid with a Trigger? (I presume the Trigger is
> "Being hit after reaching 0 BODY").

Fascinating. There's a Celtic myth that's very much like this - if I
recall correctly it was in the Welsh epic the Mabinogion (I may have, nay
probably, mangled the spelling there) where there was a lord of the
Otherworld that could be killed, but only by a single blow - a second blow
would heal him completely.

GURPS Celtic Myth handles this with an advantage called 'Alternate Blows'
which has every other blow heal the character instead of harming them.

I would venture the following: The ghul *can* be killed with a single
blow...that doesn't mean that any blow will kill it. A second blow
restoring it to life would in my mind be best handled as a mixture of
Armor and Absorbtion with the limitation 'only works on the second blow
from a particular person' or 'only works on every other hit'. You might
want to add some kind of triggered Aid in there, in case the Absorbtion
isn't enough to heal the ghul. The limitation would probably be at least
a -1, possibly slightly more since it doesn't work on the important first
hit.

At least in the Celtic Myth, the person was dealt a powerful blow, so feel
free to have the ghul be able to withstand an average attack but not an
exceptional one...

At 01:55 PM 6/28/1999 -0400, Scott C. Nolan wrote:
>It must be Summer, because I'm revisiting the way magic works in my home
>campaign.
>
>Last year I decided that I didn't want mages to have to pay END for spells.
> Instead,
>I created a system using an Endurance Battery with a recovery that only
>recovered
>once a day (upon meditation). The advantage, from my point of view, was
>that it
>forced mage characters to husband their spells, using them more
>judiciously, which
>fit the tone of the campaign I am trying to run.
>
>This worked fine for one-shot spells (like a lightning bolt) that were
>instantaneous. But
>it used up the END BATT damn quick with ongoing spells (like Flight).
>
>So I toyed with various solutions.
>
>One was that magi only paid END from the battery on casting the spell, and
>that the
>duration of the spell was limited by definition. Modelling this using 0
>Endurance
>got very expensive. Modelling it using charges put the cost more in line
>with the utility
>of the power, but since I don't intend to limit how often a mage character
>can cast
>a particular spell, other than by the amount of Endurance in the Battery,
>Charges
>seems to be cheating (giving a limitation for allowing the power to be
>ongoing).
>
>A further complication is that my magic system uses VPPs. The characters can
>only cast spells from the VPP that are written in their spellbooks (for
>which they
>pay 1 point each, regardless of the power of the spell). Charges within a
VPP
>seem doubly meaningless.
>
>Anyone have any suggestions?

At 11:19 AM 6/28/1999 -0700, Rodger Bright wrote:
>OK, here is another question.
>
>The "Requires half Move" element in UMA does not say if you HAVE to make a
FULL
>half-move, or if you can simply run a portion of your half-move to meet the
>requirements of the Martial maneuver element.

At 01:08 PM 6/28/1999 -0400, Michael Surbrook wrote:
>Okay, he is one I've been puzzling over:
>
>It is said that the ghul can be killed with one blow, but a second blow
>will bring it back to life. I presume that the ghul doesn't have that
>much BODY then (5? 8?), so killing it in one blow can't be that hard.
>But, how do you define the idea that the second blow brings it back to
>life? A bunch of Healing Aid with a Trigger? (I presume the Trigger is
>"Being hit after reaching 0 BODY").
>
>Any other suggestions?